WASHINGTON: Honorable Congressman Dan Burton has reintroduced a bill to stop developmental assistance to India on grounds of human rights violations in the 102 Congress of the United States.
India has persistently blocked efforts of human rights monitors in Punjab where it is carrying out genocide of the Sikhs.
The following is the text of the letter Mr Burton circulated among Congressmen.
Last year I introduced legislation (H.R. 4641) to terminate development assistance to India until their government permitted human rights organizations like Amnesty International to enter India in order to monitor human rights. As you may recall my bill required the President to report to Congress within 60 days of enactment whether the Indian government was denying visas to human rights monitors. Development assistance to India under Chapter 1 of the Foreign Assistance Act would have been cut off if the President reported that such Visas were being denied. Exempt from the provisions of my bill were the Vaccine and Immunodiagnostic Development Project the Child Survival Health Support Project and the Private and Voluntary Organizations for Health II Project.
Unfortunately human rights organizations are still banned from working inside India and reports of human rights violations continue. According to the Amnesty International Report 1990:
Several thousand political prisoners of conscience were held without charge or trial under ‘anti-terrorist’ or preventive detention laws. Other prisoners of conscience were detained for peaceful political activities but faced false criminal charges under the Penal Code. Torture and ill-treatment were widespread. Over 50 people reportedly died after torture in police custody. Several people ‘disappeared’ after arrest and several hundred may have been extra judicially executed.
While I hope that Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar can bring peace to India there can be little progress until all groups inside India regain the basic freedoms that people all over the world are striving for. This goal may be impossible as long as India continues to bar human rights organizations like Amnesty International at its borders.
It’s time to focus the world’s eyes on India’s human rights record. That’s why I’ve decided to introduce legislation identical to H.R. 4641 in the 102nd Congress. If the so-called world’s largest democracy is too fragile to withstand the scrutiny of groups like Amnesty International then they are not deserving of our financial assistance Mr Burton said in his appeal.
Article extracted from this publication >> February 22, 1991
